The End of the Canadian Cent

According to The Globe and Mail, the Canadian government will be ending production of their one-cent coin in April, with distribution to stop in the autumn. After that, the government will begin withdrawing cents from circulation. The decision to round up or round down will be left to individual businesses; Ottawa has suggested rounding off to the nearest five-cent value. Over 660 million of the coins were produced in 2011.

Each cent cost the government 1.5 cents to produce, and were described as a “nuisance” in recent Finance Ministry documents. “Pennies take up too much space on our dressers at home,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said. “They take up far too much time for small businesses trying to grow and create jobs.”

Produced since 1858, the Canadian one-cent coin has gone through a lot of changes. Originally weighing in at just over 4.5 grams of bronze, it was increased to 5.7 grams in 1876, then 5.6 in 1902, back to 4.5 in 1911, back up to 5.6 the following year through 1920, all at the “large-size” of 25.5 mm. In that year, it was changed to the more modern size of 19.1 mm, with a weight of 3.24 grams. It continued to lose weight over time, until reaching its final weight of 2.25 grams in 1997, after a composition change to copper-plated steel.

This move is not an isolated event, as well over a dozen other countries have ended their production and use of their lower-denominated coins since the 1970’s. The impact of this change have been estimated in saving the private sector $150 million in counting, storage and transportation costs.

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Comments

Does anyone think this will be good for collectors?
Specifically – I recently purchased the 200th Anniversary of the War of 1812 Silver Proof Set.
I was intrigued and lured by the “first ever silver Canadian penny”.
Now that it will be (apparently) the ONLY silver Canadian Silver Penny – does the set become more collectable?

More than likely the answer is, Yes. Definitely in the long term and quite possibly in the short term if there is enough hype by the media. I think it was a long time coming and the U.S. needs to rethink about its currency. The costs to make a U.S. cent and nickel are more than they are worth because of the metal content.

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